Bruises and Baggage
by darksupernatural
Summary: Based on preview for Fresh Blood. Sammy is in trouble. Who will save him? Written in about an hour. No spoilers, just my take on how I want things to be. Review! Now a twoshot and complete. All based on thirty second preview. No spoilerpeeks.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: This is a one shot inspired by the previews for next week's show. Fresh Blood. Picks up after the preview showing Sam in the dark with the knife. No outside info from spoilers if there are any floating around (I never looked). Just my take on how I want things to be.

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Sam was down and bleeding badly. Gordon had beaten him to within an inch of his life, trying to force him into using the abilities Sam no longer thought he possessed. It was true. Sam was no longer the psychic supposed leader of the demon army but that didn't stop Gordon from believing it with every fiber of his being. _Sam Winchester must die._ It had become Gordon's mantra.

"Time for you to die, Sammy. You're not gonna lead anything now except your own way to hell."

"Gord…(cough, gasp) told…you I….don't lead (gasp)…any…"

"Demons lie and you're no better than them." Gordon sneered as he raised Sam's head by his hair and sent a brick lined fist into his face again, snapping his head back and rendering Sam unconscious. Blood spilled from Sam's mouth, nose and the three gashes on various parts of his face.

"Not all demons lie, Gordo. I'm telling the truth when I say you're dead."

Gordon spun, totally caught off guard at the voice coming from behind him in the dark. He had six other hunters stationed around the warehouse where he'd moved Sam after kidnapping him. No one should have been able to come within a mile of Sam if they had the intent of helping him.

A girl stepped out of the dark, coming to stand in front of Gordon. "Who the hell are you?" He asked her; incredulous that such a small girl could get past the others.

"You mentioned demon?" Ruby snarked as her eyes flashed black. Gordon stepped back.

"So the army came to rescue its General?" Gordon raised his gun and trained it on Ruby's forehead.

"You can't possibly think that pea-shooter'll hurt me?"

"No but it should kill your host."

"Trouble with that thinking is I'm not possessing anyone. I'm a pureblood." She reached out with blinding speed and grabbed Gordon by the head. A quick twist and he slumped to the ground.

"I guess you really do have eyes in the back of your head now, Gordo." She stepped over the body lying on the floor in the warehouse a few feet from Sam. She crouched down and rolled Sam onto his side so she could look into his battered features.

"C'mon, Sammy. Don't do this to me now." Ruby touched his blood stained cheek and he stirred. He opened the eye that wasn't swollen shut.

"Ru…" That partial word trailed off into a coughing fit that had him gasping for breath as blood flecked his lips.

"Hey… shhh. You took a hell of a beating. I'm here to help, okay?"

"How…?" his eye went shut again and reopened slower than ever. It closed again and he sighed, giving in. _Sorry Dean_ was his last thought.

"Like this." Ruby reached to her neck and pulled at a chain that rested there. On the end was an amulet. She gripped the amulet and placed it to his chest. Blue light coalesced in the room and coursed through Sam's body. His mortal injuries lessened and he laid there, still bleeding and beaten, but no longer losing the battle with death.

His breath rasped in his throat. "Atta boy, Sammy." Ruby heard a phone ring and she looked behind her. It was coming from Gordon's body. She stood and went to the corpse with the twisted neck, pulling the phone from his pocket. It was Sam's, like she figured. _Dean calling_ was scrolling across the screen. She flipped open the phone.

"Sammy?! Sam, answer me!"

"He can't just now."

"What?! Who the hell is…Ruby?! Where the hell is Sam? What have you done to him?!"

"If you'll shut up and listen for a minute, Dean. I just saved his life. He's in the warehouse at the corner of Fifth and Pier. You're buddy beat the hell out of him."

"What…?"

"Get here now. Your brother needs you." Ruby clicked the phone shut and laid it beside Sam. She lifted his head and placed it in her lap as she knelt down.

"I'm really some big bad scary demon, aren't I? If you could see me now…" She brushed Sam's blood soaked hair out of his eyes. The blood seeping from him had begun to clot. "How is it that every time I see you, you're a mess in one way or another? Can't you ever just be a tall cute guy? 'Cause let me tell you, bruises and baggage do nothing for the image."

The Impala roared to a screeching halt outside. She could hear the engine being shut off and a door being thrown open with a squeal. Dean burst through the door a moment later. He had the Colt drawn and on her before she could move away from Sam.

"Get away from him, now!"

She stood and approached Dean. "You know you're really ungrateful, you know that?" Dean just glared and raised the gun from her chest to her forehead.

"What. Did. You. Do. To. Him?" he asked, accentuating every word.

"Saved his ass from the heap beside you." She said gesturing to Gordon's body.

Dean's eyes finally moved from her and settled on Gordon, then shot to Sam.

"Gordon?! He had Sam?"

"Damn near killed him. Stop staring and help your brother." Ruby walked out of the room. Dean turned the Colt on Gordon's body and fired once, then rushed to Sam's side where he lay on the blood covered concrete floor.

"Sammy! Sam" Dean touched his face and his eyes opened. One was swollen nearly shut and he looked like he'd been through a battle, or dragged behind a truck. Dean couldn't decide which.

"Dean?" Sam mumbled.

"Hey kid. I'm gonna get you patched up, okay? You're gonna be good as new."

Dean eased Sam into a sitting position and he cried out in pain. Dean froze and lifted Sam's head from where it lolled against his shoulder. He forced Sam to meet his eyes. "Hey. I need you to hang on, okay? I have to get you to your feet." A few anguish filled minutes later Dean was supporting Sam and on the way to the car. He laid Sam across the back seat with a few more cries of pain from Sam. He got behind the wheel and fired the engine while pulling his phone from his pocket. He hit a button.

"Yeah?"

"Bobby, I got Sam. Meet me at the motel. I need your help." The Impala's tires squealed as rubber met the road.


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: Response to my one- shot has been amazing. So many people wanted more. Thank you for reading and reviewing. So here it is.** Bruises and Baggage: **part two.

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Dean squealed tires into the motel parking lot five minutes after he'd gotten off the phone with Bobby. They had been searching for Sam since he'd disappeared a few hours before. He was out of the Impala and flinging the back door open when Bobby pulled into the gravel lot behind him, stirring a cloud of dust. Dean just knelt and touched Sam's face, trying to get a response from his badly beaten baby brother.

"Come on Sammy, don't do this." Dean said as he eased slowly wakening Sam into a sitting position so he could pull him out of the back seat. Sam cried out and Bobby pushed his way in to look at the injured hunter.

"Dammit. What the hell happened?"

"Gordon. Again." Dean said.

"Is that son of a brick dead yet?" Bobby questioned as he offered a hand in helping to pull Sam from the car. Sam cried out again. "Easy kid, we're gonna help." Bobby soothed as he wrapped one of Sam's arms around his neck.

Dean grabbed the other arm and helped steady Sam on his feet as they half walked- half dragged Sam into the room. "Yeah. He's dead. Ruby got to him when she found Sam."

"Ruby? The demon, Ruby?"

"She…did something… (gasp) to…help me." Sam struggled to speak as his head continued to loll on his shoulders between the two hunters. They now had him at the bed and eased him down. He immediately began coughing. Bobby rolled him onto his side to clear his airway and Sam gasped in the much needed air.

"Easy kid, easy. Dean, go get your med kit."

"I'm on it." Dean said and with a short glance at Sam he headed back outside to the trunk of the car. He grabbed the kit and rushed back into the room. "Here, Bobby. I'm gonna get some water and washcloths so we can clean him up."

"Good." Bobby removed Sam's jacket which was blood stained and torn. Sam winced in pain and tried to grip the blanket beneath him. "Sam, c'mon. We gotta look you over. What hurts?"

"What…doesn't?" Sam dissolved into another coughing fit. Dean hurried back into the room and put the bowl of water on the nightstand. He hurriedly circled the bed and sat down at Sam's back. He began massaging circles along his spine and over the area of his lungs. Sam relaxed and the coughing ceased. His shirt was tattered and covered in blood. Dean's hand came away from Sam's back bloody and an awful image flashed through his mind. Sam, and another time his back was bleeding. Dean cringed and met Bobby's eyes over Sam.

"We need to get his shirt off." They soon had the blood stained fabric away from Sam's body and took in the extent of his injuries. His back was covered in scrapes and bruises but there appeared to be nothing serious. Dean had expected awful wounds from the amount of blood that still covered Sam's skin but noticed nothing even requiring stitches as he took the cloth from Bobby and wiped away the blood.

"What the hell?"

"What, Dean?" Bobby glanced up from where he was cleaning Sam's facial wounds with antiseptic and looked at the other young hunter.

"His back was covered in blood but there's hardly a scratch. Just bruises."

"That's because of this beauty." Ruby said as she stepped into the room without a sound, raising a hand with something dangling from it. Dean pulled the Colt and leveled it on her as soon as she spoke.

"Oh, would you drop the gun. Seriously, I gotta tell you, this whole lack of trust thing you've got going on- really gets on a girl's nerves." She walked right past the barrel of Dean's colt, the one she'd helped to reconstruct, and looked down at Sam.

"How's he doing?" She asked Bobby, completely ignoring Dean.

He spoke anyway. "That really doesn't concern you, sister. Now does it?"

"Well then. If how he is doesn't concern me then how he's not dead right now shouldn't concern you."

"Ruby." It was Sam who spoke. She looked away from Dean and lowered her eyes to the bloody, beaten young man who lay on a lumpy bed in a dingy dive of a motel room. "How did you…help…me?"

"Egyptian healing charm. The real deal, one time only kind of thing. It's useless now." She dropped it on the bed beside Sam's hand, and turned back to Dean who still had the Colt leveled on her. Bobby kept one eye on the two circling predators in the room and the other on cleaning Sam's wounds, not saying a word.

She glared at him. "You know I don't like you, right?"

"Oh, trust me… the feeling's mutual."

"Would you just drop the macho hate-us-all-cause-we're-smarter-than-you act and realize that I'm _here to help._"

Sam spoke again, around a wince as Bobby began stitching up the worst of his facial injuries, the cut high on his forehead. "Dean…please."

Dean lowered the gun but it remained clutched in his hand.

"That's better." Ruby said as she took off her jacket and perched on the bed next to Sam. Dean stiffened but didn't raise the gun again, opting for venomous words instead.

"Get away from my brother you demonic bitch."

"You should really be a little nicer to me Dean-o. Your brother would be dead if it weren't for me. Bang up job on watching out for Sammy, by the way. You're definitely maintaining the record number of wins there." She said sarcastically.

"Bite me, bitch." Dean snarled.

"I wouldn't want to get anything in my teeth." She replied with a straight face. "So tell me you at least put one of the bullets from that Colt into good ol' Gordo before you pulled Sam outta there?"

" Yeah. In the forehead. Why?"

"Good. At least we don't have to worry about his reappearance."

"What the hell do you mean by that?"

"Gordo tangled with your vamp buddy that was spreading his gift. Took some blood and converted himself. How do you think he got to Sam- and took him- all by his demented little self?"

"That bastard turned himself into a vamp to get to Sam?!"

"Yep."

"God." Sam said from behind Ruby. "Why would he do that?" He forced himself into a sitting position and wrapped an arm around his bruised ribs.

She turned to him and looked him over. "Well, well, you're looking better now than the last time I saw you. Gordo was big time demented. Thinking you were the leader of the army. You were supposed to be, but good old Azazel couldn't quite get you to fall in line behind him. Gordon didn't see that as a win for you. He believed you had to die no matter what. So he sprouted fangs."

"You're a demon. Aren't you supposed to want Sam to be your leader?" Dean broke in, wondering just what the hell Ruby was up to. Ruby shifted her gaze to Dean.

"Like I told Sammy here a few days ago, not all of us are out for the same thing." She looked at Sam again and winked. "Don't let anybody else beat the hell out of you for a while there, tall, dark and bruised." She stood from the bed and shrugged into her jacket, heading for the door.

Dean turned on her again. "Just what the hell_ is _it that you want then?"

"That's another story for another time." The three hunters glanced at each other before looking back towards the door. Ruby was gone. Dean looked at Sam and raised an eyebrow.

"Don't look at me, man. I got no clue what makes her tick." Sam said. Dean shook off the feeling that had settled over him and moved to Sam's side.

"So you're really okay?"

"Sore, but yeah." Sam picked up the amulet that still lay on the bed between him and Dean and looked at it. "Huh," was all he said.

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A/N: So this is it. My final addition to a story based on a very vague thirty second preview for Fresh Blood. I may be close on what happens or I may just have a very dark overactive imagination. Guess we'll just have to wait and see. Just in case it pans out to be close to this I wanted to tell you readers out there that I hate spoilers and nothing is intentional. I also didn't check out any director's cuts or anything. Thanks for reading and please review!


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